Aesthetic Exploration in the "Virtual Nature" of Synthetic Environments and Artificial Ecologies

I don't "draw art" . . . I grow it

Much of my work, as a "procedural" artist, has been devoted to exploring the aesthetic linkages between the psycho-dynamics of emotional cuing, as per the forms, structures, and textures of nature, and the state of mind that such content invokes.

I often refer to this aesthetic linkage capacity in terms of "invocation of rapture" potential, of which nature tends to invoke the highest response. My interest has been in the creation of synthetic environments in which alternative forms of nature can be "spawned", explored, and formed as an aesthetic medium.

As a design strategy, I propose that we, the human species, have been deliberately "programmed" to respond to the aesthetic content inherent in nature, with a depth of emotional engagement which transcends logical lexicon or reasoned response. This may be in part due to the fact that the human species is the only lifeform which currently possesses the ability cause considerable affect to the planetary life support capacity, and therefore we are collectively imbued with this nature induced "invocation of rapture"factor indexed to its highest subliminal potential, as a protectionary mechanism

I visualize a world in which the aesthetic and behavioral attributes encountered on the virtual terraform, in whatever domain or environment may be represented therein, is not confined to merely a recreation of "common" humanoid related environments or participants. The very essense of access to virtual environments represents the potential for encountering experiences, lifeforms, and aesthetic content not possibly accessable via any other means.

Just as there is aesthetic content to be discovered and observed in the nature of the "real" world, there is also unlimited potential asthetic content in the "alternative" nature of "virtual worlds". The creation of virtual worlds, or for that matter, virtual universes, can encompass any range of spatial or temporal domains, ranging from the inifinitely immense, such as a model of the known universe, to the atomic and molecular scale of a theoretical "nanoworld".

Though my background is rooted in the world of science, particularly in the arenas of physics, astrobiology, nanotechnology, and related arenas of interest, I have for many years also been intrigued by the aesthetics of nature, at all scales, ranging from the molecular to cosmological.

About "Organomorph":This series of images was created by the morphing together of dual 3D raytraced "virtual world" images, utilizing an artificial life routine to drive the control points in the morph engine. Both of the virtual world images themselves are renderings of synthetic environments (a procedurally "grown" crystalline geode, and a 3D colony of artificial lifeforms).

Dendrite series

Fractal Infinity series

Adventures in Rio - on the front page of O-Globo during an art exhibition, and on the lecture tour of a series of international virtual reality conferences in Brazil.

"Spawning" aesthetic content in the production lab.

Explore the outer frontier of computer generated art, where the features of shape, form, color, and texture are spawned in 3D virtual environments, utilizing a unique combination of custom software tools, programming, and visualiztion techniques to create highly elaborate virtual world renderings of "Visions from Virtual Worlds"

In this context, the computer is used as a type of virtual camera to capture moments of space and time in theoretical virtual domains. Rather than merely "drawing" a picture of something, there is a far greater potential content in exploring virtual domains in which the dynamic features and components of these domains can be modified, even "evolved", as a series of definable events in order to create the asthetic content in the scene.

This process allows for the exploration of infinite non existant, or even "impossible" worlds. The visitor is invited to experience NanoWorld, and peer into the many possible realms of nanotechnology, and what may be waiting for you there.

"Brain of Charles" - this "virtual brain" was created by raytracing the volumetric data of a 3D scanned brain, which was subsequently surface mapped with a procedural fractal texturing routine. The topology in the background is actually a calcite geode which was also scanned in with the Cyberware 3D scanning system, and then also surface mapped with a procedural texturing routine. This entire scene, complete with the metallic probe entering the lower right corner of the "brain entity", was rendered as part of the scene art featured in the article written by the author / artist for Mondo 2000 magazine, on the topic of current and near future mind-machine interface technology. For further exploration into this, and other such realms, and beyond, visit

As featured in the book "Avatars" -Explore the "virtual future" of digital biota, artificial lifeforms and ecologies, virtual humans, and the emergent anthropology of synthetic societies in "Avatars", the book - Bruce Damer - ISBN 0-201-68840-9 Many thanks to Bruce Damer and the Digital Biota organization, which has fostered through its continued efforts the cultural, societal, and technical integration of organic and "artificial entities" into the evolutionary evenstream which the human species is soon to encounter.

"The NanoWorlds of Charles Ostman. Charles Ostman is a real wonder of a "Professional Synergist" from Berkeley, California. Ostman brings his years of experience in building successively smaller and more complex electronics at Lawrence Berkeley labs and intense interest in Nanotechnology to bear through his organic art vision. Ostman's works seek to give us a reflection from a future "virtual terraform" inhabited by "synthetic sentients". Ostman sees a time in the future when Nanotechnology (the ability to make things one atom at a time) renders all current economic systems obsolete and transforms human lifestyles and our very perception of reality. Ostman is science editor for Mondo 2000 and a frequent guest on Art Bell's Coast to Coast all night radio show. The basic inspirational building blocks of Ostman's art include molecular machines, self assembling "nano lego" components, nanobots and nanocritters, pseudo proteins, quasi viral components,"artificial" organisms, and ubiquitous nano "foglettes" "

Excerpt from the book by Celia Pearce, "the Interactive Book": ISBN 1-57870-028-0 A-Life of One's Own - V-Art Another A-life alchemist is Charles Ostman. "Ostman's interest lies in the interface between nature and machine. His specialty is nanotechnology. Nanotechnology is a technique of manipulation at the molecular level that enables you to do things such as create self-assembling materials, micro-machines, and pseudo-viruses. Self-assembling materials-which at one time were called "nano-leggos" until the name had to be changed due to trademark disputes-consist of molecules that can manipulated through input (such as heat or electrical charge)."